This week, Andre Leite Alves, Mr. AwareBear, has once again perjured himself, in an attempt to file a DMCA against this site and three of the images used (in good faith used under 17 USC Section 107 which allows for such considering the context of this site). This is not the first time Andre Alves has attempted to do so. Remember many years ago when he filed a false DMCA (against my domain registrar) claiming the images of my office were actually his and that I was the one infringing on them? Perjury might be something Andre Alves was born with but since I am not a doctor I don’t know that for sure. Lying and displaying deceit, however, that I think has long since been proven.

Scroll down to read the actual DMCA takedown notice that was filed.

Andre Alves is not the brightest bulb as most of you have already noticed. I can only imagine how much time and money Andre Leite Alves has spent (possibly from the Aware Bear business account) on the many feeble attempts at influencing search results. But the consistent and persistent failure of his efforts to accomplish anything is truly mindboggling. I also believe that Andre Leite Alves must think that my office is actually a time travel machine because he very seriously botched his DMCA attempt, like he botches a lot of things, just ask any displeased customer of Aware Bear Computers in Rochester.

It seems Andre Leite Alves really can’t do anything right!

Prior to filling out the DMCA, Andre Alves uploaded 3 images from this site. Images which at one point in the past (2009 and 2011 to be exact) were on the Aware Bear Rochester website. Then proceeded to create a blog post in WordPress and backdated it to December 7, 2007. Then labeled the images as (C) 2001-2012 to create the impression for the DMCA Agent that this site had taken them off of his site, and proceeded to state such, under penalty of perjury. Except what our clueless clown Andre Alves failed to pay attention to, because he is not really a detail oriented guy, is that images from 2009 and 2011 appear in his post that is dated several years prior to those.

I honestly do not have a time travel machine but I think Andre Alves believes I do. And for those of you paying attention, he botched one of the images even worse by having it in the 2012/03 upload folder. Anyone using WordPress will understand where I’m going with this. Images uploaded March 2012, in preparation for his false and incorrect DMCA filing, made to appear as if they were actually there in 2007. And he also needs people to believe there was no activity on his link-heavy blog between 2008 and 2011? Nice one, Andre! You must think other people are equally as dumb as you are.

Andre Alves, who appears to also moonlight as a “full time” wedding photographer (a full-time wedding photographer and full-time computer-repair guy, eh), must not understand digital images all that well because he clearly also forgot about things like date stamping and additional digital data embedded in those very image files. What that exactly means I will not explain because there is no reason to try and educate Andre Leite Alves. Instead I will just save this really good information for any situation where I may need them to pull the rug out of under any attempt at legal harassment. There are two other indicative issues with his DMCA attempt but those too, I will save for later.

What Andre Leite Alves (or should I refer to him as the Aware Bear that is unaware most of the time) also failed to think about is the fact that two of the images are cropped from the site they were originally on and are not the actual crop size of the images as they were at the time. It is nothing short of amazing that the exact crop is actually dated 2007 on his “blog” because they are clearly the exact crop I took. The old Aware Bear site(s) and content are probably not in Andre Leite Alves’ possession anymore so he didn’t notice it. Luckily, I always cache and copy everything just in case such is needed to provide proof and evidence.

So what’s up with these images and why would Andre Leite Alves spend $99 on trying to have them removed through the DMCA process? Nothing in particular, really. It is clear he attempted this as a “test” to see if it would work and if it did he could then proceed and start filing more false DMCA’s as long as he had a few dollars to spend on it. But the reason the habitual liar and serial infringer wanted the images gone is clear; they expose his habitual lies in a no uncertain manner.

The image that is a screenshot of one of his web pages, with the so-called testimonials on it for example. As already shown previously, testimonials from allegedly happy customers have been used throughout the years and attributed to different names at different stages during the changes of the Aware Bear Computers website(s). Also, the exact same text of the supposed testimonials has been found posted elsewhere and passed off as real testimonials, yet also attributed to different people in different places. Under 17 USC Section 107 I of course am showing exactly that.

The other two images have a bit more history to them. The first was taken from the Aware Bear website (in the state it was in at the time) to show that it was not just my office that Andre Leite Alves pretended was his. Also, a friendly and smart person e-mailed me with the links to the actual website designs in the image, as they belong to Template Monster and are not designs ever made by Aware Bear Computers. Ditto for the small image pasted into the monitor in that arrangement.

After I pointed that out and used the image to show this, Andre Leite Alves immediately modified the image on his website to contain an email address instead of the office and also took out the small design pasted in the monitor. He left the Monster Template images on there. Perhaps he bought those templates or decided he would take his chances. During that year the Aware Bear website underwent a lot of changes as Andre Leite Alves tried to wipe out all the obvious lies like claiming to be an official Apple Repair Center (yeah, right, ask Apple about that one).

Speaking of Apple. Did anyone notice the banner image at the top of Andre Leite Alves’ “link farm” blog? Do you feel you have seen that image before? That’s because you probably have.On Apple’s website! So clueless Andre can’t even build a “link-farm” blog without yet again using content he’s not authorized to use!

The full DMCA takedown notice as it had been received by my web host.

Please note that I have taken out the name and details of the copyright agent. As it turns out the actual filing was done through a 3rd party website and the chain of action on the DMCA is a little complicated to explain, nor really of any interest here. The copyright agent is someone I know and respect and it became increasingly clear what exactly transpired and what Andre Leite Alves attempted to accomplish.

Please see attached notice of copyright infringement, which has also been pasted below. Thank you very much for your time and attention to this matter. Please note that, in addition to the below infringement, the site itself appears to be nothing more than a spam redirect and an attempt to capitalize on my clients domain name.

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you to avail myself of my rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and/or the European Directive on Electronic Commerce (EDEC). This letter is a Notice of Infringement as authorized in § 512 of the U.S. Copyright Law and EU Directive 2000/31/EC. I wish to report an instance of what I feel in good faith is an instance or Copyright Infringement. The infringing material appears on the Service for which you are the designated agent.

You are either registered with the U.S. Copyright Office as the designated service provider agent to receive notifications of alleged copyright infringement with respect to users of the service or have listed this information as the appropriate account to file such complaints on your site.

1. The material which I contend belongs to myself or my client, and appears illegally on the Service is the following:

5. I have a good faith belief that the use of the material that appears on the service is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or by operation of law.

6. The information in this notice is accurate, and I am either the copyright owner or I am authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

I declare under the perjury laws of the United States of America that this notification is true and correct.

Signed:

[name removed]

Note: [company name removed] is acting as an authorized DMCA agent and is solely responsible for the preparation and submission of the DMCA notice.

Don’t you just love the lies Andre Leite Alves manages to concoct?

As the DMCA takedown notice reads, “Please note that, in addition to the below infringement, the site itself appears to be nothing more than a spam redirect and an attempt to capitalize on my clients domain name.”

So this site is a spam redirect now? Amazing! I challenge anyone reading this to google the name of the habitual liar and discover the countless attempts he’s made to influence search engine results to combat the negative exposure that his actions have received here and in other places over the many years. It is unfortunate for Andre Leite Alves and Aware Bear being presented in a satirical manner here but there is a limit to how many times this clown should get away with his lies.

I think poor Andre was projecting a little too much when he came up with the “spam redirect” idea considering that he has produced tons of content and posted it all over the internet for just one single purpose. And yet, even after spending so much time over those many years, he accomplished nothing with it (nor will he, but he hasn’t figured that out yet, as I said, he is not the brightest bulb).

The images will be back up shortly as I entertain the full counter notice of the DMCA process. In order not to expose the current web-host as this process resolves itself, you can view the images here, here, and here if you want.

On several forums on the internet someone using the nickname EndeverouX, claiming to work on PS3 hacks and something called ONYX 3.56 CFW 3.56, is using the images of my home office in his posts and signatures. THIS IS NOT ME but just some pathetic individual who is often called a fake and a fraud by his peers and who felt it was a good idea to use the images of my home office in the false hope of gaining some credibility from his peers.

Needless to say, EndeverouX has now accomplished exactly the opposite because any credibility he might have had is now being taken away as I expose him for the fraud that he truly must be.

EndeverouX has been making waves and noise in the world of the Sony PS3 (PlayStation 3) with various claims about him working on some firmware hacks under the name of ONYX 3.56 CFW. Don’t ask me what that is or what that’s even about. Anyone who knows me or has read my FAQ knows that I don’t play computer games and that I don’t even own any computer game console of any kind. But from the stuff I’ve seen on the nextgenupdate.com site it seems it all revolves about hacking this ONYX 3.56 CFW stuff for the PS3.

Many of EndeverouX’s peers in the PS3 forums have considered his statements and claims to be bullshit combined with a serious level of lies and fraud. Whether that is true I don’t know but I think all those people who say that about him are probably correct in their assessment of EndeverouX.

There is no doubt in my mind that if someone has to show off my office and claim it’s their workstations and their “studio” and then have the audacity to use them as images in every post they make it is nothing less than a sign of very low self-esteem. It is also a sign of being incredibly stupid and DUMB because so many millions of viewers have seen the images over the years on my site and recognize them as such.

If you examine the above screenshot of one of his posts I’m sure you’ll get a laugh out of it. Notice how he’s having arguments with his peers and claims he “will not stop down to anyone’s low level”. But, EndeverouX, you have stopped much lower than anyone’s low level and this is the proof!

The reason I discovered this was after getting a lot of hits from some Spanish PS3 forum in which EndeverouX “studio” was mentioned. One of the Spanish users ran the image through TinEye and called EndeverouX for what he really is; a complete and utter fake who wanted to impress his peers with something that isn’t his. A quick search led me to the “home base” of this pathetic individual (who claims to be a 29-year old with 9 years of experience yet that is drawn into doubt by his peers).

I have asked EndeverouX why he is using the images of my home office in the manner in which he does but he has not come up with any explanation as of yet. Not that it really matters because anyone reading this can probably figure that one out without his help.

I have also sent an official copyright infringement notice to the folks over at the nextgenupdate.com forum since it is their forum that EndeverouX is using to publish, without permission and obvious fraudulent intentions, the images of my home office. I expect the forum admins will be removing the images as per my request (I bet they wouldn’t want to be held liable for someone who’s so clearly a complete fraud). I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up banning this EndeverouX person from their forums in violation of the policies (such as not posing copyrighted material).

Of course, what someone like EndeverouX wants is attention and it is very clear from his actions in the whole PS3 scene that it is what he craves. I doubt he wanted the kind of attention this will now bring to him, though.

Especially on a site that’s so heavily visited as mine. I bet a little extra exposure on the officethieves.com website wouldn’t hurt either.

It’s a new kind of category for EndeverouX. I don’t think I have ever encountered an individual who’s claims are questioned by his peers and then to counter the doubts that are issues decides to use my office images to “buy” him some (non-existent and baseless) credibility.

Update: I was wondering why I was getting so many visitors looking for EndeverouX and CFW and ONYX 3.56. But the Google search results on the left explains exactly where all those visitors and web traffic is coming from.

Welcome to your last 15 minutes of “fame”, EndeverouX. You’ve worked very hard for it so please be proud of yourself.

I think Aware Bear Computer Repair (i.e. Andre Leite Alves) may have been pushed from its coveted number one position in the office thieves’ hall of shame by a company called Innovative Consulting Group (using the domain name groupiconsulting.com), founded and co-owned by the very unreliable and suspicious Ihtisham (Shami) Ul Haq.

For the record, I have nothing to do with this fraudulent and illegally operating international ‘company’ called ICG, nor do I have any stake in any activity that either promotes, endorses, or encourages the outsourcing of software development (or any other such) activities.

Summary

Innovative Consulting Group, in its own words, “is an IT consulting and development company in service on the market since 1999″ and they “help companies around the world” through the many outsourcing activities that it allegedly offers. This company was found to be using an image of my home office on its main website, fraudulently implying that I am involved in facilitating or rendering of their “good services”.

After a very quick round of legal negotiations and settlement offers, Shami Ul Haq agreed to pay US$25.000 as a settlement fee and to remove the image from the ICG site. Shortly thereafter Innovative Consulting Group (ICG) took the addresses of its US office location (in Virginia) off the site and substituted a phone number for the address of its Australian office—only to replace that with an e-mail address a day later and after being confronted with the fraudulent addresses used by his company, in silence and the dead of night took off the Australian address too. Clearly, Innovative Consulting did not wish to be found anywhere besides its office in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Just as obviously, these are the sudden actions of a company or one or more individuals that have something to hide. In this hall of shame exposé, you will learn just what ICG has to hide—and it’s not just the fact that they are operating unregistered businesses illegally. Read all about Innovative Consulting Group in Islamabad, Pakistan. We’ll even show you the REAL images of their American offices. I guarantee you’ll get a few laughs out of it.

The website of Innovative Consulting Group (ICG) at the time of notification of copyright infringement. If the site still exists after this hall of shame exposure, you can find it at groupiconsulting.com.

A little background to put things into perspective

Those of you who know me personally or professionally know my clear and outspoken opinion on the subject of outsourcing (to low-wage slave-labor countries in what still is or used to be called the Third World). My experience with outsourcing, in particular assisting companies that have “outsourced their butts into a corner”, is such that I not only apply that experience to help those who have ended up with minor or total disasters as a result of such outsourcing but also help and prevent such disasters from happening in the first place. You will often hear me talk and consult about the dangers of outsourcing to companies in India and China as well as helping the companies in the Western part of the world understand just why things are not always as easy, clear, and cheap as they had hoped for. Some companies I’ve consulted for have lost millions of dollars on outsource projects. This goes far beyond “They are taking the jobs away from us,” though in many cases that is also true.

You can imagine that I would consider the association of my office with an outsourcing company that targets Western countries a direct attack on my integrity and reputation. The more than 17 million visitors to my website attest to the strong public association between those office photos and my business. Based on the photo on the Innovative Consulting Group website’s home page, it would be easy to assume I was affiliated or associated with them, or worse, had a stake in the company and its activities, and therefore never mentioned Pakistan because I wished to drive outsource money away from India and China and into my own pockets. That would be an entirely reasonable, if incorrect, conclusion for a visitor to the ICG website to reach. I’m sure you understand that under these conditions I was ready to take on this company head-on. I was not about to let them get away with this.

The information from the web designer

I became aware of this copyright infringement when I received a tip regarding screenshots posted to Deviant Art by Bilal Malik and decided to notify Bilal of the trouble his client was in and how he, as the designer of the Innovative Consulting Group website, could be in trouble depending on the kind of indemnification clause in his contract with the company.

Bilal Malik immediately removed the image from his Deviant Art pages and informed us that he did not have any part in the copyright infringement because the company (Innovative Consulting Group) did not want to pay for stock photography and provided their own content to the web design company that Bilal worked for when he designed ICG’s website. He also informed us that he created this design for the ICG web-site around March of 2009. That meant nearly 2 years had passed between the creation of the site and my discovery of the infringement.

The other interesting thing that Bilal Malik said, however, was that both he and Innovative Consulting Group were based in Pakistan and there would be no way to sue over copyright matters. Luckily I had already consulted with my attorneys on this matter and re-educated Bilal on that subject.

Facts about copyright law in Pakistan

Anyone else who thinks that copyright laws don’t exist in Pakistan is misinformed. The fact is that Pakistan signed the Copyright Ordinance of 1962. This Ordinance is a derivative of the English Act of 1914. In addition to that Pakistan is also a member of the Berne Copyright Union and Universal Copyright Convention. In 1992 the Copyright Amendment Act was signed into law in Pakistan and since that time allows for stiffer penalties and damages for offenders that are guilty of copyright infringement. Even of more interest is that under section 71 of Pakistan’s copyright laws it is not only the company that commits the act of copyright infringement that can be held liable: liability extends to every person who was in charge of the company at the time the infringement was committed.

First contact with Mr. Ihtisham Ul Haq ( Shami Haq).

Because I believe in a personal approach and keeping the lawyers locked in their cages until they are deemed necessary, I sent off a notification with additional information to ICG. They were informed of the infringement, the consequences, the unforeseen effects, and of course their legal position and my thoughts on how to resolve the matter. I prefer to have companies and individuals settle their matters out of court if possible, because it’s the best option for everyone involved and there is often no real benefit from the higher costs (and higher damage claims) and length of time involved in a formal legal suit.

Shortly after that a response arrived from someone who signed with just “Ihtisham,” without giving any indication of his or her full name and certainly not a job title. Rather unprofessional, I thought. But then again I am not familiar with business etiquette in Pakistan. The best part was that the response said that the images of the home office used indeed “showed similarity”. (Gee, ya think?!) And the message asked whether more of my images were found elsewhere on the site. But “Itisham” entirely failed to take responsibility for ICG’s actions, even though it was no longer possible to blame the web designer for the infringement. Needless to say, if you do that you’ll just get the legal chapter and verse in more detail.

Settlement reached

Chapter and verse read and the lawyers rattling the bars of their cage with eagerness to take things to a higher level, another response arrived from Mr. Shami Haq saying that he was ready to compensate me for falsely associating me with his business.

Based on the length of time the image was used and because it incited visitors to the ICG website to question my ethical standards and statements regarding outsourcing, and because Innovative Consulting Group deliberately committed copyright infringement as well as false advertising , my lawyers recommended I make an offer with the following options. One was a lump sum payment of US$25.000. One was a rectification on their website for the duration of one year with a mutually agreeable text that would disclaim my perceived association with them. Or a combination of the two for half the amount as a lump sum and half the period of time. Very quickly Mr. Ihtisham Ul Haq responded that they preferred to settle according to the first option, a lump sum payment of US$25.000 and asked for bank information, etc. to deal with the matter swiftly.

The speed at which they agreed was both surprising and suspicious. The general assumption was “That’s too quick, it appears they have something to hide”. Well, clearly they had, and did, and still do, but we’ll get to that part next!

My reputation is NOT for sale for $25

A few days later another response from Shami Haq of Innovative Consulting Group arrived asking whether he was correct that the US dollar amount was “twenty-five” dollars. I guess the notion of the number actually meaning “twenty five thousand” must not have occurred at the time of agreeing to that particular settlement option. I can’t begin to tell you how much we had to laugh but let’s just say that the entertainment value provided by ICG that day was certainly one of the best so far.

It does show, however, that something is seriously wrong with Innovative Consulting Group if they consider US$25.000 to mean “twenty-five” dollars. Even with the cultural difference of dots and commas there’s just no way you can mistake that number for its actual value. But then again, ICG and Shami Ul Haq claim that the company provides:

High-quality development such as web design and development, database design and integration, programming, web site maintenance, e-commerce solutions and Application development. We help companies around the world to leverage the power of the Internet by placing highly qualified design and programming specialists, project managers, and analysts at their fingertips. We beat deadlines and leave our clients completely satisfied. In addition, the relatively our weak Currency is allowing us to drop our prices, making us a favorite service provider for US-based clients. We have the skills you need, and we have the credentials, portfolio and client references to prove our abilities.

AND THIS COMPANY CLAIMS THEY ALSO WORK IN THE FINANCIAL IT INDUSTRY?!

It’s real easy to drive the point home here. What company in their right mind would want to outsource their development or IT tasks to these amateurs? Are you sure you want to have such numerical errors in your financial systems? Outsourcing is cheap and you get what you pay for but in the case of Innovative Consulting Group you might actually see your numbers vanish by a thousand-fold when “experts” like Shami Haq are part of your business. It does show that Mr. Ihtisham Ul Haq has the ability to make money disappear.

But that’s not all Mr. Shami Ul Haq can make disappear. Read on to learn just how he made his offices in the USA and Australia disappear OVERNIGHT.

But first let’s have a good look at this company and then the founder and co-owner because it is crucial to understand what is being presented and how what is being presented ends up being nothing more than a total scam based on lies and other very suspicious behavior.

Who are Innovative Consulting Group?

According to their own words they claim to:

Maintain high ethical standards in our dealings with clients and business partners, and make decisions that factor in our principles first and foremost. We treat each client’s business as our own. We care how they perform over the long term.

Ethical standards? I would argue that a company that doesn’t want to pay for stock photos and would rather steal content from the web has the ethical standards of a weasel with a drug addiction problem. Treat the client’s business as your own? I wasn’t your client and never will be, thank you very much. Please don’t treat my business as your own as you have done for nearly 2 years!

Since our inception, we have been committed as both business and community leaders. We believe that to build a successful company we must contribute back to our community in hopes of making it a successful environment for others. By making financial donations to registered charities that provide food and shelter to the needy, we hope to fulfill our obligation towards those that Allah Subhana wa Ta’ala tests by financial hardship.

I plead ignorance on the whole Allah Subhana thing they mention but I can read the financial hardship part and I think they might be in for that for the long run. If not by the trouble they have unleashed upon themselves and by their own decision and doing then certainly by the in-depth investigative exposé about the scam these jokers are running and how they target US companies who wish to outsource (their money) to this Innovative Consulting Group in Pakistan. I think that real financial hardship is yet to hit them.

Oddly enough, if you dig real deep you will find that this “multi-national outsourcing company” with the allure and presentation of that of a large corporation actually in more recent years only offered web-design and development services. But overnight it transformed itself into what you can see on their website at groupiconsulting.com. Some of the people and companies that allegedly outsourced their money to them include:

Ken Dawson / Federal IT Publications, USA

Usman / NEIMS

Ikram / CCP

Steve Philly web Solutions, USA

VisageIT, USA

Phoyola ArqITech, USA

Who is this Shami Haq (a.k.a. Ihtisham Ul Haq)?

Shami Haq claims to have been educated as MCS Software Engineering 1999-2003 at the Naval University. Unfortunately I was unable to obtain any verification of that. Based on public information out there, Shami Haq’s specialties (and that of the Innovative Consulting Group ‘company’ that he founded) include; Project Consulting, Software Development, Web Development, IT Infrastructure, Web Design, IT Outsourcing, Offshore Dedicated Team. It’s a shame that his specialties fail to list “content theft” and “impersonation” and “lame copyright infringement” along with “pretending to operate foreign businesses” and “pretending to be a multi-national company”.

Mr. Ul Haq also claims to be the founder of Federal Advantage, which operates in the Information Services Industry and provides on-demand federal resources & contact solutions. Or is otherwise described as “A collaboration of information for businesses to gain more opportunities to do business with the federal government”.

If that’s not enough for you, he also claims to be the founder of Federal IT Publication which is some kind of “GSA IT Catalog” and an “informative IT Directory offering in-depth information about vendors who provide products and services on GSA Schedule 70″. Mr. Shami Ul Haq also claims to have been the owner of WebSauce Technologies, a web design company that supposedly existed for a period of 3 years between 2002 and 2005. From the details on WebSauce you can see that Shami offered his “services” for $5 per hour. Yes, that’s right, $5.

If you look at the way Innovative Consulting Group, through its website, presents itself as a large multi-national outsourcing company and then examine their actual activities you will find that it is mostly just really simple and below average web stuff. Perhaps the presentation of the company was wishful thinking or just pure delusion. Either way the reality shows it is definitely deceptive.

Where is Innovative Consulting Group based?

Let’s get to the real fun part and expose the Shami Shame for all to see. Yep, you’ll now learn the true locations of this amazing outsource company from Pakistan. I’ll provide you with some images of the locations and the addresses that were listed on the Innovative Consulting Group web-site. You will learn all about this fraudulent company and its founder and co-owner an what he’s involved in when he’s not trying to sell glass top dining tables from the so-call “business address” in Australia (oh, yes, that’s right, we have plenty more information on the location in Australia and Mr. Shami Haq than we’re publishing here… yet).

During our legal communications and interactions the US office address was removed from the ICG website as was the office address in Australia. Instead the office in Australia only had a phone number. A day after those changes were detected the Australian office ‘lost’ its phone number and only listed the central e-mail address for the company. Eventually everything except the address in Pakistan was removed from the site. Suspicious? Offices that vanish into thin air might be a common thing when the owner of the company is called Shami Haq. This is the behavior of someone with a very clear and present consciousness of the need to hide. Unfortunately for Mr. Shami Haq, we already had the addresses and kept them on file and also have screenshots of everything. So now let’s have a look at these addresses. Put on your laughing face because you’re going to need it!

The US office of Innovative Consulting Group

Is it just me or does this US office location and address simply not match the allure and presentation provided by their multi-national looking IT outsourcing services website?! And guess what, the property at 8507 Kernon Ct, Lorton Virginia is owned by a Mr. MAHMOOD HAIDER.

In fact, if you really want to know, at the time of writing this the land value is $78.000, the building value $187.333, the total property value is $265.330. It’s 1554 square feet of land with a 1440 square feet living area. It’s a 2 story townhouse (4 bedrooms 3.5 bathrooms) connected to water and sewer but has no gas connection but does have a fireplace. It was built in 1986 and the most recent sale is from 03-28-2006 at a price of $425.000. The sale before that was 4-26-2000 for a price of $165.000.

And just how are MAHMOOD HAIDER and Shami Haq connected? Once I have information on that I’ll be sure to let you know in an addendum. Perhaps Mr. Haider is the co-owner of Innovative Consulting Group because no other co-owners can be legally found or discovered by regular means.

Mahmood Haider also sold a property on Eastgate Lane 7312 to Sarah K. Anderson for $333.000 and another property on Curtier Drive 6035 to Travis J. Upton and Tiffany A. Wight for $180.000. However, before you start wondering, no, there appears not to be any license for a realtor or real-estate agent by that name.

The phone number listed (703-626-0933) belongs to the Herndon, Virginia area. Other information also directs the radius of the location to include the 8507 Kernon Court location in Lorton).

The Australian office of Innovative Consulting Group

Another little plot somewhere in a typical residential area that certainly does not fit the way the company presents itself as a large internationally operating corporation. And not only that, according to other information, another company is registered to the address at 13 Rolain Avenue; Zach’s Distributors. A company that distributes funeral, cremation, etc. goods and materials.

The other thing to take note of is the postal code that ICG listed on their website. It consistently shows 1732 when in fact the actual post-code is 3752. Strange that an international outsource company like Innovative Consulting Group can’t even get their own post-code right, doesn’t it?

The Pakistan office of Innovative Consulting Group

Indeed, it’s one large building site based on those images. However, those image may be quite old and likely actual buildings now exist at that location.

Of course, it could be a site that recently saw some impact of terrorist-seeking drones or just a complete mess of some other kind. The lack of building cranes, vehicles, or stashes of materials do make it seem odd for just a building site. Either way, this is the location of a company that presents itself as a big outsourcing multi-national? If you believe that I’ve got easterbunnies with bridges to sell you.

And if that’s not enough the address and phone number are used in other places on other websites as well. For example a company called ETCON ME, based in the Middle East, in the United Arab Emirates, with just a PO Box, a phone number and an e-mail address.

This comany, ETCON ME, also lists an address and phone number in Pakistan that is identical to that of Shami Haq’s Innovative Consulting. The phone number also shows up for a completely different address for Innovative Consulting. This time on an address listed as: 1-B, Street No. 50, F-7/4, Islamabad, Pakistan. This while the listed “owner” of the company is: shahzadyounis91.

Business license and registration

You can probably sense this one coming a mile away. After some initial searching and contact with the relevant agencies and authorities in both Virginia (US) and Victoria (Australia) it became clear that neither ICG nor Shami Haq had no business registrations or business license in either location.

Anyone with a little knowledge about business knows that it’s illegal to conduct business without the required registration, license, and in specific cases various permits. This may very well explain why, after our initial round of legal interactions, the company’s website no longer had their foreign offices listed. Let’s look at their business statements once again:

In addition, the relatively our weak Currency is allowing us to drop our prices, making us a favorite service provider for US-based clients. We have the skills you need, and we have the credentials, portfolio and client references to prove our abilities. We maintain high ethical standards in our dealings with clients and business partners, and make decisions that factor in our principles first and foremost.

So here we have a company, Innovative Consulting Group, founded and co-owned by Shami Haq, who also goes by the name of Ihtisham ul Haq, operating illegal and unregistered business entities with addresses in Australia and the US, claiming to have credentials and high ethical standards.

There are more appropriate ways to describe this situation and for lack of such on their site I will happily provide it: Innovative Consulting Group is FRAUDULENT and Shami Haq runs A SCAM. Because no matter how you examine this, left right top or bottom, front or back, the unregistered illegal nature of the non-existent business entities used in their “dealings” with alleged clients is everything except honest and ethical and truthful. Instead, it is all the opposite of that. Everything about Shami Haq’s Innovative Consulting Group reeks of misrepresentation and suspicious behavior.

Their “testimonials” are FAKES!

Yes. It’s not just Andre Leite Alves of Aware Bear Computers who’s good at writing fake testimonials and then removing them from the site when the fraud is exposed. Shami Haq is equally pathetic when it comes to the way he DECEIVES potential clients with FAKEtestimonials. For example, here are a few that come straight from the site of Innovative Consulting Group:

Innovative Consulting was an amazing service provider to work with. Their quality of work was excellent, and completed all specifications required. They even made some changes after the project was complete. They did a great job, and we will use them again. Highly reccomended A++.Steve Philly web Solutions, USA

Innovative Consulting did a great job on my project. Their quality of work was excellent. All specifications were completed and on time. Price can”t be beat. Highly reccomended A++.Steve Philly web Solutions, USA

Innovative Consulting showed infinite patience in developing the web portal and did a great job. In the instance that there were problems they took great pains to sort it out once I brought it to their attention. Would definitely work with them again.VisageIT, USA

I am so glad that I chose Innovative Consulting. The staff was professional and very, very helpful and patient. I will definitely work with them again. I have begun referring my friends to them. They gave me exactly what I was hoping to get in a website. Two thumbs up for Innovative Consulting!!!Phoyola ArqITech, USA

Guess what. There is no company in the US by the name of Steve Philly web Solutions. Go look it up yourself if you think otherwise. Or better yet, try and find that portal mentioned in the “testimonial” of VisageIT. But the best is yet to come. Try finding that oddly named Phoyola ArqITech. There exists NO SUCH COMPANY. In fact, as you can see below, that company ONLY exists on 3 pages on the internet; two of which are testimonial pages of Innovative Consulting Group (i.e. Shami Haq’s scam company) and one that you will find on the NEW SCAM COMPANY called GLOBAL CONSULTING (www.gc.com.pk).

Notice in the lower-left corner of the page (click the image to enlarge) it has the exact same testimonial as that over at the Innovative Consulting Group website. Are all these fraudulent con-artists operating on the same low intelligence that they always re-use their fake testimonials? It certainly appears that way for Mr. Shami Haq!

Their “company news” is FAKE TOO

It is not just the testimonials that are obvious fakes. The company news on the Innovative Consulting website is just as fake and designed to create a false perception that Shami Haq and his company had an involvement with the projects mentioned there. But the facts are that he had nothing to do with the National Rabta Information Portal or the “Successful Implementation of SIM Information System”. The company news articles are just general articles taken from the actual reporting media in Pakistan as you can see here and here.

The only company news article that fits Shami and his scams is the one about having successfully delivered a new platform site for “Coach To Coach”. Or as the news article puts it; “Innovative consulting Web consultants have melt there skulls in the implementation of social netoworking plateform for CTC. CTC is a global networking company designed to promote the finest qualities of each individual coach in their respective field”. Yet the date on that company news article has changed at least twice in the past two weeks and I don’t know what’s so successful about having created the site that you can see in the image on the left.

Global Consulting Pakistan

Shami Haq probably thought that he could dump his US and Australian “office addresses” from the site and in a worst case scenario just make the entire site vanish just like any other criminal and con-artist would. So he prepared Global Consulting (www.gc.com.pk) as the next NEW SCAM to continue on with his fraudulent business activities. Unfortunately that will not happen for Global Consulting since it is now nicely exposed and available in recorded form here on the site.

The domain has only been very recently registered and if you examine the site (I won’t be putting up all the screen shots of all the pages here even though I of course have them) you will find the structure, topics, areas, and everything except the design, to be identical to the Innovative Consulting Group website. Except the Global Consulting site is not yet finished because Sami has been working his butt off trying to setup that new scam. He even hasn’t gotten around to adding some suspicious addresses on the new site.

Poor delusional wannabe-scammer Shami Haq even has this little “IBM Business Partner” logo on the Global Consulting site. Guess what… Oh, you already guessed. Yes, IBM has never heard of either Shami Haq or Ihtisham Ul Haq or either of the companies! The second screenshot on the left shows a different design for his latest scam. Note that the image that was pretended to be used as the site’s main page has a copyright notice of 2010 (while Innovative Consulting listed 2009 even though it was 2009), proving this to be the “fallback” plan Shami has to rid himself of the crisis of ICG. Also note that the footer says “designed by Megatronix Studio”. That’s a web design company in Pakistan. Once Shami noticed that we had discovered his latest scam under a new name and with yet another new site he quickly removed everything from the web server and put up the sign you can see on the left. Yes, you’re right, he can’t spell construction. Then again, why would you want to outsource a single dime to a scam that claims their site is “under upgradation”. It’s not even a word.

Also compare the following two texts of Innovative Consulting Group’s website and that of Global Consulting’s website. From Global Consulting:

Global Consulting is an IT consulting and development company in service on the market since 1999…. Global Consulting team with experience of over 8 years is available to ensure client satisfaction through timely and quality service provision. We help companies around the world to leverage the power of the Internet by placing highly qualified design and programming specialists, project managers, and analysts at their fingertips. We beat deadlines and leave our clients completely satisfied. In addition, the relatively our weak Currency is allowing us to drop our prices, making us a favorite service provider for US-based clients…

And the one from Innovative Consulting Group:

Innovative Consulting is an IT consulting and development company in service on the market since 1999.. Innovative Consulting team with experience of over 8 years is available to ensure client satisfaction through timely and quality service provision. We help companies around the world to leverage the power of the Internet by placing highly qualified design and programming specialists, project managers, and analysts at their fingertips. We beat deadlines and leave our clients completely satisfied. In addition, the relatively our weak Currency is allowing us to drop our prices, making us a favorite service provider for US-based clients…

Wow. What a scam. And what an obvious scam. Just as well this con-artist is being reported to all available authorities before any US company ends up losing their money to a fraudulent individual with most definite suspicious intentions.

Shami Haq engaged in PLAGIARISM AS WELL

You think you’ve heard it all? You haven’t. If you look at the text portions of both the Global Consult and Innovative Consulting websites you will see a use of the English language that Shami Haq has been incapable of in his communications with us. He stole most of the text on his websites from OTHER SITES. Here’s just one small example from their services descriptions:

Application Maintenance Service which handles all the small to big complexities pertaining to your business applications. We can correct the defect and also enhance the capability of the application.

Offshore Outsourcing has come a long way from its origins as a strategic source of inexpensive talent. Global Consulting offers world-class offshore outsourcing and consulting services guaranteed to cut costs and improve quality.

Offshore Outsourcing has come a long way from its origins as a strategic source of inexpensive talent. NETSOFT offers world-class offshore outsourcing and consulting services guaranteed to cut costs and improve quality.

Maybe you want an even more interesting example to show just how widespread the Shami Scam goes? OK, let’s have one. Here’s a text straight from the ICG and GC scam websites:

As responsible citizens of this world, we try to do our part in making our surroundings, and the world by extension, a better place to live. Since our inception, we have been committed as both business and community leaders.

This is the same text used by a company called Gleam Technologies, IIIrd Floor, #16-7-310, Azampura, Chaderghat. Near Sahifa Masjid, Hyderabad-500024. See for yourself in the image linked here. Who’s ripping off who here? Is India stealing from Pakistan or the other way around? Given Shami’s questionable activities I’d say Shami is the one doing the stealing.

As you can see, the exact same word for word text portions can be found on other (some also rather dubious!) websites. What did all these websites, including Shami’s sites, use for this? Some pre-baked “scam in a box” product? Some kind of “all your lies for $4.95″ type product or did they just all decide to copy major portions of texts from other sites, companies that really do know what they’re talking about when they had those texts written for their (original) site?

Shami the scammer is even so careless and negligent to show that he has been stealing most of the site for the new scam company Global Consulting. Pay attention to the screen grab via this link. So in addition to all those technical, development, and IT services the company also has a service called “INTERVENTION FOR TEENS”? Yeah, right. Forgot to remove some left-over bits from a set of frames you copied from somewhere, Shami?

I (do not) hate to be the one to say it but it looks to me like Mr. Shami Haq is not just a completely failed web-fiddler but a rather failed criminal who’s still trying to learn the basics of deception, lying, and stealing. Considering all the things you can read about here (and double check for yourself if you want) it is evident that Shami wants to become a “Mr. Scammy” and follow in the footsteps of bigger criminal con-artists. So far he’s being an amateur at all of it, though. Copying texts from other outsource companies in India? If you ask me that’s beyond pathetic and exceedingly desperate.

Bottom line, both Shami Ul Haq’s websites use copied portions of texts that originate from at least 51 other websites. If anything, it does PROVE that Shami is good at stealing. It also SHOWS that getting caught hurts when it gets exposed like this.

What’s next?

Quite a bit, actually. It wouldn’t be in my best interest to announce that here, but you can imagine that some further investigation is going to take place while I have my lawyers notify all the relevant authorities regarding the illegal business operation and suspicious behavior by Shami Haq and Innovative Consulting Group. Pending some of the further information we’re awaiting, a decision will be made to start legal proceedings. If nothing else it might rid the world of a fraudulent company and their vague misbehaving founder before they grab more money (and perhaps jobs) by illegal means out of the economies from their preferred ‘hunting ground’ in the US.

On a slightly related subject there is another even more serious thing to consider. Lots of organizations, including the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) repeatedly bring to our attention the money laundering schemes conducted by shell companies (i.e. front companies) in the west in order to funnel the money generated to Pakistan to fund international terrorism. I’m sure you’ve heard of it in the media over the past many years just like we all have heard and seen it. In case you haven’t you can familiarize yourself with the subject matter here, here, here, here, here or here, or maybe even here and here.

Considering the profile of this company, the illegal operations in Australia and the US, the sudden disappearance of their office addresses the moment that Innovative Consulting Group through Shami Haq discovered that the matter of the copyright infringement was going to be publicized, the clearly fraudulent nature of the construction and presentation the company wishes to project, and all the other information above, certainly can be categorized as “suspicious behavior” and “suspicious activity”. As we’re frequently informed, such suspicious activities should be reported to the proper authorities so it can be examined and dealt with.

does not appear to be operating as a legal registered business in Australia.

does not appear to be operating as a legal registered business in the USA.

copies their texts and mission statements and company values from other sites.

are now proven to be deceitful liars and NOT real businesses.

was unwilling to pay for stock photographs according to the web designer.

is careless and negligent when it comes to using content without permission.

pretends to be a lot more than the company really is.

claims to render services for the financial sectors but don’t understand basic numbers.

What if Innovative Consulting Group provides cheap web design and development work to you and by its own ignorance and carelessness causes you to be exposed to potential legal trouble and in response to your complaint will simply move offices again in the dead of night? They certainly show all the typical behaviors normally associated with a fraudulent operation.

If you’ve never heard of Transworld International Youth Organization welcome to the club. I sure never heard of them. Until now, that is.

What you see here is a grab of the “contact us” page of this organization which I assume now can confirm must be is some kind of scam. Why else would a real organization use a picture of MY office on their “contact us” page, implying it’s their “head office”? The address listed for Transworld International Youth Organization (TIYO?) is Brunham Road, FT. Smith, Arkansas, United States of America.

There is very little you can find about this organization but if you search for the name of their secretary, supposedly a person going by the name of Professor William Kim Higgins, you will find this particular e-mail (from 2003) where the person posting the e-mail asks whether this is a scam or not.

What strikes me as really funny, and is perhaps related to someone not paying attention. The www.stefandidak.com URL is part of the office photo because it links directly to one of the images on my site. If you’ve come to my site with questions about Transworld International Youth Organization or Prof. William Kim Higgins because you saw my URL in what they claim is their “head office” picture then I’m afraid I can’t help you. I have no idea who that is or what that organization is trying to do but I can tell you, it isn’t anything good and you are likely to lose information or money to this organization and the scam they are running. Needless to say, I have absolutely nothing to do with these crooks.

Looking at the rest of the website it just looks like a total scam revolving around global relief re-construction and some kind of vague conference. Note that the main site also has an alternate main page that’s linked from elsewhere in the site. I don’t know what kind of fraud ring this organization or the (probably fake) Prof. William Kim Higgins is running but it sure looks like it’s nothing good and the website does not inspire me with confidence. In fact, the text and content on the site just seems to scream “this is a total scam” as far as I can tell.

If you know more about this, please let me know of leave a comment here.

Addition: Some additional information can also be found here. This link features a warning about a scam called International Youth Org. Saying that an e-mail from one Secretary General, Madam Cynthia Brady is floating around. This particular Transworld Youth Organization uses the address of No 157 West 47th Street, New York, NY 10036.

Another addition: A website called Fraud Watchers also has some info on this scam. It appears the scam attempts to get your name, date of birth, place of birth, passport numbers, country code number, etc. information from you. For what is likely to be nefarious purposes.

Update April 4th, 2009: The scammers have killed their site. After exposing them in my post and updating an image on their site it only took them a week to discover the game was over. They had not just taken one of my office images, they linked directly to it. I modified that image so everyone visiting the website of these scammers showed THIS image. I expected they’d notice that sooner or later and take the image off. Instead, they just deleted their entire site (which was hosted by FreeServers).

Andre Alves has attempted to misuse (abuse) the DMCA in order to get my story of his fraudulent actions removed from the internet. In order to attempt that this little Aware Bear sent a DMCA complaint to a domain registrar where stefandidak.com, my domain, is registered. Unfortunately it once again shows that Andre Leite Alves has no clue about the law, in any way shape or form, and had no legal assistance in the process of writing that DMCA complaint (the plethora of errors and missing words in there is very similar to his hasted reply after I first confronted him with a demand he immediately stops using my material for his personal gains and business activities). It is starting to be clear that Andre Leite Alves is an amateur in every respect.

What Andre Alves also hadn’t realised is that I have dealt with DMCA situations in the past and am even on record in a policy report by the Brennan Center for Justice of the NYU School of Law, regarding a very similar case with a professional con-artist I had exposed. That con-artist also attempted to abuse the DMCA for what it was never intended for as you can read in the report.

I believe that Andre Alves of Aware Bear Computers is not too happy with me showing the derivative work he illegally and without authorization created from my copyrighted work. And again it becomes clear that Alves has no legal assistance because they would have informed him that it was his mistake that caused the circulation and that now it allows me to use it under the fair use clause of the copyright act. Of course, we all know that Andre Alves doesn’t care about the image and copyrights, if he cared about copyrights he would not have done what he did and would not have spent the past days removing OTHER material from his site and replacing it with generic images instead. All Andre Alves cares about is not getting exposed. Well, bud, it’s a little too darn late for that.

Notice how Andre Alves also commits perjury in his DMCA complaint by stating that my website is operated an on anonymous basis. Funny he can find the contact details of the domain host but not my contact details that are right there alongside it. Contact details he already had in the first place as is already on record from our previous communications. Again, it shows typical low-life behavior of a petty amateur because he believed he could get away with filing a DMCA that way. What Andre Alves should do, if he feels strongly about copyright infringement and believes that the fair use clause does not apply, is file suit against me and leave it up to the courts (he already knows where to find me to file suit and even if he didn’t it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out with a simple lookup). I would welcome him trying that. For one, if he makes a personal appearance in court (very unlikely since he’s running and hiding from being served with my case that’s now hanging as a thundercloud above his head) we can serve him easily. Notice how he failed to provide a valid address on the DMCA (a requirement)

Anyone who can provide me with the whereabouts of Mr. Andre Leite Alves at a specific point in time can expect a generous reward once we can serve him his summons.

Anyway, for your enjoyment and education I present to you the DMCA complaint as it was sent to the domain registrar. Needless to say, all the errors and mistakes are verbatim and by Andre Alves. I wonder if he will attempt to claim copyright on his DMCA complaint too now.

This letter is formal notice to you under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 USC ? 512. that you are maintaining materials on your servers that infringe on the copyrights of my personal work. Accordingly, we hereby request that you take down or remove this infringing content from your servers.

1. Identity Of The Copyrighted Work That Has Been Infringed. My own the copyright personal photograph, which have appeared and have been published over the years in, among other places, web sites owned by me and in literary and marketing materials in several types of media distributed to the public. Below are just a few examples of the items of content that have been copied and pasted into this website.

2. Identity of the Material That Is Infringing My Copyrighted Work. The website StefanDidak.com currently contains pages infringing content. The search queries, and the search results containing web pages that infringe on my own rights, are attached as Exhibit B. We can provide a digital copy of this Exhibit B if it would be helpful to you.

4. Contact Information for Owner/Administrator of the Web Site Containing Infringing Material. The individuals who operate the website www.stefandidak.com do an anonymous basis. The email that they provide on their website is: stefan@stefandidak.com.

If you have any questions about this notice, please contact me at (585) 473-7035or at solutions@awarebear.com

Thank you,
ANDRE LEITE ALVES

Exhibit A
AFFIDAVIT

I, Andre Leite Alves, declare the following:

1. I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described in the attached letter, that appear on the allegedly infringing web pages as described in the attached letter, is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

2. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the, owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of New York that the foregoing is true, and correct.

I would like to thank Andre Alves for providing this DMCA complaint under penalty of perjury because he has now incriminated himself even further than he had already done. Thanks Andre! You have just declared that you have used the stolen material that “appeared and have been published over the years in, among other places, web sites owned by me and in literary and marketing materials in several types of media distributed to the public”. So it’s been used even more than we already can prove with the hardcopies of the brochures, judging from his words. You’re going to not be too happy in court but please do continue to incriminate yourself and declaring so under penalty of perjury. Maybe, Andre, it is time you get an actual attorney instead of trying to play one yourself. You end up making a clown out of yourself this way.

What Andre Leite Alves also hadn’t grasped is that by not having proper legal counsel it can become a very painful situation that backfires (which, once again, it has for him). For example, he has not understood the DMCA at all (then again, there does not seem to be much he understands other than that he needs to hide and run from a legal suit that is likely to impact his life in a very negative way), and as a result has not understood section (f) of the DMCA in which it states that it makes the sender of an invalid claim liable for the costs involved, including legal fees.

Of course, I can’t complain because his clowning around works in my legal advantage.

I operate my website on an anoymous basis? Gosh, this Andre Alves must be a certified moron if he thinks anyone with half a braincell believes that. A 2-year old can easily prove that is not the case. It is, of course, entirely within the realm of possibilities that I overestimated Andre’s IQ. With the US credit crisis going on, perhaps that IQ is also a negative number.